“I’m never running a marathon again.”
Huh. That sounds familiar, doesn't it? Let's go back a couple of years.
“I’m never running a marathon again.”
On October 16th, I ran the Melbourne Marathon. I can't explain why I decided to run it because, as you saw above, I told myself that I would never do it again after running the Madison Marathon in 2014. Marathons, no matter how much training you do, are painful. Very painful. It is past the distance that humans are built to be able to comfortably run. I'm convinced that training for and running a marathon is past the point of being a healthy choice because of the toll it takes on your body. I knew all of this, yet I still decided to run.
Maybe the training is big part of the reason that I decided to run. I trained for 18 weeks, running 5 days a week and playing basketball once a week. During the week I did one speed workout (fartleks, repeats, etc.) and on the weekend I did my long run. While marathon training is quite grueling and is a big time commitment, there is something very satisfying about putting so much energy into a very tangible goal. This time around, I set two goals. Goal 1: beat my last marathon time (3:29). Goal 2: Break 3:20. Another thing that was good about training was the social aspect. In a city as big as Melbourne, there are running groups that cater to just about any training need. I became a regular at the speed workouts with Crosbie's Crew on Tuesday nights and at the Wednesday night runs with a Melbourne Marathon-sponsored group. It was nice to mix running and socialising and break up the monotony of running solo. In terms of purely physical positives of training, I enjoy being in a nearly perpetual state of "runner's high" and, not that I need my metabolism to speed up, but I also enjoy being able to eat more food. The brunches that I make after long weekend runs are, if I may say so, quite glorious.
I woke up on race day to the sound of the wind howling outside, just as forecasted. Blast! I was hoping the forecast would prove false. Oh well. I had done some studying up on racing strategy during windy days so I wasn't going to let that stop me. Before showering (yes, I showered. I also did my hair. Look good = feel good = race good!), I made breakfast and made sure to take a dose of my favourite Performance-Enhancing Drug: coffee. And yes, if you're wondering, coffee has been shown to improve long-distance running performance. It's also been shown to help people be less upset that they're awake at 5:30am on a Sunday morning. Energised by my PED and peanut butter toast, I headed to the race.
When I got to the starting line I made a beeline for my 3:20 pacers. For those who haven't watched a marathon, there are usually "pacers" who are hired to run at a certain pace throughout the race to help other runners run at their intended pace. It was immediately obvious how much bigger this marathon was than the first one I ran in Madison. It was a lot of work to sneak my way through the crowd. Once the Australian national anthem was played and the starting gun was fired, I focused on not letting my adrenaline get the best of me and cause me to run too fast at the start. Once I found a groove, I distracted myself during the first 25km by attempting to use other runners to shield the wind and scanning the crowd for Linnea, who was bombing around the course on her bike. She managed to see me at several different spots throughout the run and it was great to have somebody continuing to cheer for me as it got more and more difficult. I really started to feel it around the 35km mark, at which point we had to endure 2km up a steady incline. I wasn't sure I would ever catch my breath and my legs felt like they couldn't possibly maintain my pace long enough to finish strong. My knees hurt, my hips hurt, and I didn't think I would be able to summon the energy to continue. However, I thought about all of the long runs that I had done in preparation for this point in the race, and luckily that training enabled me to keep my legs moving. The marathon finished inside of the Melbourne Cricket Ground. I don't remember ever smiling bigger than I did when I entered the grounds. I was smiling for a couple of reasons: I beat my goal time by a couple of minutes (3:18) and I could stop running soon.
Immediately after the race, I could barely walk. The next day, I could barely walk. The rule of thumb is that you should take it easy for about as many miles as you ran, so I'm taking a bit of time off from running to let my body recover fully. I'm thinking that my next race will be a half marathon and I don't see another marathon in my future. Give me a couple of years to forget the suffering endured during this marathon, however, and it might be a different story.